WHO will be crowned Celebrity MasterChef champion on Friday?

After six weeks of gruelling gastronomic challenges, Celebrity MasterChef’s 20 contestants have been whittled down to the final four who’ll battle for TV’s top culinary prize on Thursday and Friday.

TV presenter Charley Boorman, supermodel Jodie Kidd, ballet star Wayne Sleep and actress Sophie Thompson have chopped, steamed and cooked their way to the final and are thrilled to have reached the last stage of the competition.

I am ridiculously delighted to reach the final

Jodie Kidd

“To go through was awesome,” says Jodie, while Sophie admits she was “ridiculously delighted” to reach the final.

Charley says one reason he joined the competition was to cook with his best friend, actor Jason Connery – but once he reached the final, he was in it to win.

Wayne has reason to be surprised to have reached the final as presenter Gregg Wallace told him early on he wouldn’t go very far in the competition.

“It wasn’t what I expected. I hadn’t cooked for 30 years so I wanted to learn new skills,” says Wayne. I wanted to make myself do it, to make the effort.”

This week the celebrities will be cooking street food for the opening of London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, home of the 2012 Games. It’s a pressurised situation with the added difficulty of having to produce Asian and South American dishes from an unknown list of ingredients.

Jodie reveals that once she tapped into her memories of travelling as a model, thinking of ideas for the challenges became easier.

But while globetrotting may have helped Jodie and Charley, presenter of a series of motorcycle travelogues, Wayne admits local delicacies weren’t always on the menu when he was touring the world as a dancer.

By the end of Thursday’s episode, though, the final four will have become three, when one leaves the competition. The last three will face the Chef’s Table challenge, which this year has an Italian theme and is hosted by chef Francesco Mazzei of L’Anima. Among the judges will be Saturday’s Aldo Zilli along with Antonio Carluccio, Giorgio Locatelli and Theo Randall.

While the contestants can’t reveal which of them got through to this stage, Jodie says she particularly enjoyed cooking in the professional kitchens.

“I liked working in that environment,” she says. “It was great to be part of a team and get your teeth into something. There was an energy in the professional kitchens, someone telling you to do this and do that. I felt quite alone in the MasterChef kitchen.”

The winner remains a closely guarded secret, but all four agree that MasterChef was an experience they won’t forget in a hurry.

“I aged about 50 years,” says Jodie. “It made me laugh, it made me cry and it made me nervous – but it was amazing.”

“It bites you on the bum,” adds Sophie. “It became like a weird focus and I was constantly practising at home. My family had to eat some bizarre things, at bizarre times of the day, but I loved the challenge.”

Charley adds, “On MasterChef you learn a lot very quickly. John Torode and Gregg are really helpful. They want you to do well. They aren’t there to make you look bad, they want you to do the best you can. It was terrifying, exhausting and stressful, but a pretty good adrenaline kick.”

For Wayne, Celebrity MasterChef taught him it’s never too late to learn new skills.

“I found a hobby I’m good at and I’m 66 on Thursday,” he says. “I think that’s quite remarkable!”